Social media image sizes cheat sheet for 2026

Nothing makes a scheduled post look sloppier than a cropped headline or a face cut in half by a feed preview. The fix is boring but effective: know the sizes before you design, and export one version per platform.

This cheat sheet lists the image sizes commonly recommended for each major network in 2026. Platforms change their rendering without warning, so treat these as the current working defaults and check the official platform documentation if a specific campaign depends on pixel precision. There is also an interactive version of this table, with per-network notes, at postfree-app.web.app/tools/social-media-image-sizes.

The quick table

Platform	Format	Commonly recommended size	Aspect ratio
Instagram	Feed (portrait)	1080 x 1350	4:5
Instagram	Feed (square)	1080 x 1080	1:1
Instagram	Stories and Reels	1080 x 1920	9:16
X	Landscape image	1600 x 900	16:9
X	Square image	1080 x 1080	1:1
LinkedIn	Link preview image	1200 x 627	~1.91:1
LinkedIn	Image post	1080 x 1080 or 1080 x 1350	1:1 or 4:5
Facebook	Link preview image	1200 x 630	~1.91:1
Facebook	Image post	1080 x 1080	1:1
Threads	Image post	1080 x 1350	4:5
Bluesky	Image post	1600 x 900 or 1080 x 1080	16:9 or 1:1
Pinterest	Standard pin	1000 x 1500	2:3
YouTube	Thumbnail	1280 x 720	16:9
TikTok	Video and cover	1080 x 1920	9:16

Two sizes cover most of the table: 1080 x 1350 (4:5) works on Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn and Facebook, and 1600 x 900 (16:9) works on X, Bluesky and as a YouTube thumbnail with a small resize. If you only have time to make two exports, make those.

Platform by platform

Instagram

Portrait 4:5 (1080 x 1350) takes up the most vertical space in the feed, which is why most brands have moved to it from square. Square still works and is the safe choice for carousels where some slides are reused elsewhere.

Stories and Reels are full-screen 9:16 at 1080 x 1920. Keep text and faces out of the top roughly 250 px and bottom roughly 250 px, where the profile bar and reply field sit. Instagram compresses heavily, so export at high quality and avoid thin lines and small type.

X

The in-feed preview crops to roughly 16:9 for a single landscape image, so 1600 x 900 displays cleanly without cropping. Square 1080 x 1080 also displays without a crop and works well when the same asset goes to Instagram.

When you attach two or more images, X tiles them and crops each one. For multi-image posts, keep the subject centred in every image. Four images is the maximum per post.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has two very different image contexts. A link preview (when you paste a URL and LinkedIn pulls the og:image) renders at about 1.91:1, so 1200 x 627 fits. A native image post (uploading the image directly) supports square and portrait, and 1080 x 1350 gives you more room in the feed.

Native image posts usually get more reach than link posts, so a common pattern is to upload the image natively and put the link in the first comment or the body text. Page admins should note that company pages and personal profiles render the same sizes.

Facebook Pages

Link previews use the og:image at around 1200 x 630. Direct image uploads do well at 1080 x 1080, and Facebook also displays 4:5 portrait without cropping in the mobile feed. Avoid images with a lot of text if you plan to boost them; Facebook's ad review still penalises text-heavy creatives.

Threads

Threads behaves much like Instagram, since it shares the same infrastructure. 1080 x 1350 is the default recommendation, and square works. Threads supports up to 10 images in a carousel-style post.

Bluesky

Bluesky displays landscape (16:9) and square images well. Two things set it apart from X: the recommended file size is under 1 MB per image, and alt text is strongly encouraged by the community, with many users muting posts without it. Resize before upload, since the client will compress aggressively otherwise. Up to four images per post.

Mastodon

Mastodon does not have a single standard because rendering depends on the instance and the client app. Square 1080 x 1080 and 16:9 both display reliably in the default web client. Alt text matters here as much as on Bluesky. Check your instance's upload limits; the default is generous but admins can lower it.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the outlier: tall 2:3 pins (1000 x 1500) consistently perform best in the grid. Taller than 2:3 risks being truncated in the feed. Pinterest is also the one network where putting a short text overlay on the image is standard practice rather than a penalty.

YouTube thumbnails

1280 x 720 at 16:9 is the standard. Thumbnails are shown very small on mobile, so one face, one object, or three words maximum is the practical rule. Keep the bottom-right corner clear for the duration badge.

TikTok

Video is 1080 x 1920 vertical. The cover image uses the same canvas. As with Stories, keep critical content out of the bottom third where captions, the username and the engagement buttons sit.

File formats and compression

• JPEG for photos. Export at quality 80 to 90; above that the file grows with no visible gain after the platform re-compresses it.
• PNG for screenshots, charts and anything with flat colour and text. Platforms will often convert it anyway, but you start from a cleaner source.
• WebP is accepted by most networks in 2026 but not all third-party tools handle it well. If a scheduler rejects an upload, converting to JPEG or PNG usually fixes it.
• GIF support varies. X and Mastodon handle animated GIFs; Instagram and LinkedIn convert them to a static first frame.

Keep individual images under 5 MB for the broadest compatibility, and under 1 MB for Bluesky.

Safe zones for text

On any image that will appear in more than one place, keep text inside the central 80% of the canvas. That protects against the different crops you will hit when the same file is previewed in a feed, a notification, a direct message and a shared link.

For vertical 9:16 formats, the safe zone is tighter: avoid the top 14% and bottom 20%.

One image, many platforms: a practical workflow

Most teams do not have a designer available for each post. A workflow that holds up:

1. Design the master at 1080 x 1350 (4:5). This is the most restrictive common size.
2. Export a 1080 x 1080 square crop from the same file.
3. Export a 1600 x 900 landscape crop if the post goes to X or Bluesky.
4. For Stories or TikTok, extend the background to 1080 x 1920 rather than stretching the design.

Figma, Canva and Photoshop all support export presets, so steps 2 to 4 are a few clicks once the frames are set up.

Then attach the right export to the right channel in your scheduler. Buffer, Publer, Later and Postfree all let you customise the attachment per network within a single post, so you are not creating four separate posts to publish one piece of content. Postfree also shows each network's character limit and image count as you edit, which catches the "11 images on Instagram" mistake before the API rejects it.

When a platform rejects an image

Rejections almost always come down to one of four things: file too large, dimensions too small, aspect ratio outside the supported range, or an unsupported format. A scheduler that surfaces the network's actual error message next to the post saves a lot of guessing; Postfree shows it inline with a one-click retry, and most of the other tools do something similar. If the message is vague, resize to one of the sizes in the table above, re-export as JPEG, and try again.

FAQ

Do I really need a different image size for every platform?

No. Two exports (1080 x 1350 portrait and 1600 x 900 landscape) cover almost every feed without cropping. Add 1080 x 1920 vertical if you post Stories, Reels or TikTok. Only Pinterest genuinely needs its own 2:3 size.

Why do my LinkedIn link previews look cropped?

LinkedIn pulls the og:image from the page you link to, and it expects roughly 1.91:1 (1200 x 627). If your site's og:image is square or portrait, LinkedIn crops it. Either update the og:image on the page or upload the image natively and put the link in the post text.

Are these sizes going to change?

Probably, at the margins. Platforms adjust their feed layouts a few times a year. The aspect ratios (4:5, 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 2:3) have been stable for several years even when the pixel recommendations shift, so design to ratios and you will stay close enough.

What resolution should I use for Retina or high-DPI screens?

The sizes above are already 2x for most feeds, since the displayed width on mobile is around 400 to 540 px. Exporting larger than listed increases file size without visible improvement after the platform compresses it.

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If you schedule to several networks and want to see each one's limits as you write, Postfree's composer shows character counts and image rules per channel, including the 9:16 video rules for TikTok, Shorts and Reels. You can sign up for the free plan at https://postfree.app/signup (no credit card) or just bookmark the image size tool for the next time you are exporting.